Sergei Nechaev

Lore & Background

Nechaev fled Russia in 1869 after having been involved in the murder of Ivan Ivanov, who disagreed with some actions of Nechaevites. Complicated relationships with fellow revolutionaries caused him to be expelled from the International Workingmen's Association. Arrested in Switzerland in 1872, he was extradited back to Russia, where he received a twenty-year sentence and died in prison.

Reader's Guide

Nechaev was born in Ivanovo to poor parents—his father was a waiter and sign painter. His mother died when he was eight. He developed an awareness of social inequality in his youth.

At 18, he moved to Moscow, then to Saint Petersburg, where he passed a teacher's exam and taught at a parish school. From September 1868, he attended lectures at Saint Petersburg University as an auditor and became acquainted with subversive Russian literature. He participated in student activism in 1868–1869, leading a radical minority.

In December 1868, he met Vera Zasulich. In January 1869, he spread false rumors of his arrest and left for Geneva, where he won the confidence of Mikhail Bakunin and Nikolai Ogarev. In late spring 1869, he wrote the Catechism of a Revolutionary. He returned to Russia in August 1869 and created a secret society called People's Reprisal Society.

On 21 November 1869, Nechaev and several comrades beat, strangled, and shot Ivanov. He fled to Saint Petersburg in late November, then left the country on 15 December 1869, heading back to Geneva. In January 1870, Bakunin and Ogarev embraced him on his return to Switzerland.

Did You Know?

• Nechaev's Catechism of a Revolutionary was re-published by the Black Panther Party in 1969.
• The murder of Ivanov was fictionalized by Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel Demons.
• Nechaev was said to have slept on bare wood and lived on black bread in imitation of Rakhmetov from Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done?.